The mild, mild west?

In the wake of major rioting in London, Birmingham, Bristol etc. my home town of Gloucester experienced its own, small-scale riot last night. While nowhere near the scale of the virtual war-zones seen in London in recent days, this still must have been frightening for residents caught up in the fighting. About 60 people smashed shopfronts, set fire to a derelict college building and confronted riot police, who pushed the rioters back from the city centre and contained them in the Tredworth area of the city, where the disturbance had first started.

Whether this rioting was a result of genuine grievances and anger in an area which has seen racial tensions in the past, or was just an excuse for copycat thugs to go on the rampage just for the hell of it, it's still a damning reflection on today's society. The gap between the "haves" and the "have-nots" grows daily, the bankers still rake in huge profits while the economy nosedives, Murdoch's right-wing media empire still has the monopoly on printed news in this country ( despite the "phone-hacking" scandal ) , prices of everything from food to fuel are spiralling, while a huge section of the populace are constantly being labelled as scum with no future, even as the constant celebrity-worship only reinforces our place at the bottom of the totem-pole...

I'm not condoning violence or rioting but eventually something has to give...

*Phew!* Rant over...

Interestingly, Sophie's boyfriend rang early yesterday evening to say that his dad, a police officer, had warned him to stay out of Gloucester city centre that night. The cops obviously knew it was going to kick off...